Prognostic value of serum aquaporin-1, aquaporin-3 and galectin-3 for young patients with colon cancer.

BACKGROUND: This study aimed to investigate the long-term prognosis value of serum galectin-3, aquaporin (AQP)-1 and AQP-3 in young patients with colon cancer. METHODS: A total of 100 young patients with colon cancer, 100 cases of benign colon and 100 healthy people were collected. All colon cancer patients were followed up for 42 months. RESULTS: Compared with the benign lesion group and the control group, preoperative serum galectin-3, AQP-1 and AQP-3 concentrations were significantly increased in patients with colon cancer (P < 0.05). The immunohistochemistry scores of galectin-3, AQP-1 and AQP-3 in colon cancer patients were positively correlated with serum galectin-3, AQP-1 and AQP-3 concentrations (P < 0.05). Serum galectin-3, AQP-1 and AQP-3 concentrations were positively correlated with TNM staging (galectin-3: rPearson = 0.502, P < 0.001; AQP-1: rPearson = 0.415, P < 0.001; AQP-3: rPearson = 0.454, P < 0.001) and differentiation (galectin-3: rPearson = 0.377, P = 0.004; AQP-1: rPearson = 0.411, P = 0.001; AQP-3: rPearson = 0.483, P < 0.001). Receiver operator characteristic curve (ROC) analysis showed that the area under ROC curve (AUC) of the combination of galectin-3, AQP-1 and AQP-3 in distinguishing colon cancer was 0.907. The sensitivity in the parallel mode was 87.6%, and the specificity in the serial mode was 98.2%. Compared with the low galectin-3 group, low AQP-1 group and low AQP-3 group, the survival time of patients in the high galectin-3 group (χ2 = 13.929, P < 0.001), high AQP-1 group (χ2 = 10.157, P = 0.001) and high AQP-3 group (χ2 = 4.364, P = 0.037) were significantly shortened. CONCLUSION: Galectin-3 combined with AQP-1 and AQP-3 had important value in the identification of young patients with colon cancer and was of great value in evaluating long-term prognosis.